All By Myself
by parttimeficwriter
Summary: Ruth thinks about the life she has chosen. H/R.


**Self beta'd so apologies for any mistakes but I've not long since finished work and am just trying to get it posted whilst it's still Valentine's Day!**

**The title doesn't belong to me!**

**Happy Valentine's! **

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The biting wind slices through her as she steps off the bus and commences the short walk home. She has only just finished work but it's already dark and the rain is beginning to turn to sleet as she walks along the pavement. She huddles further into her coat, grateful for the small amount of warmth it offers, and tries not to think about the day she has had. There are days when she truly hates her lonely existence and today is definitely one of those days. Everything, no matter where she looks, or where she turns, seems to remind her that she is almost forty years old and is still a spinster. She's been single now for more years than she cares to count and, as she passes the brightly lit restaurants with happy couples inside, she realises that this is the path she willingly chose.

She imagines that some would find her story romantic and, on her better days, it is a notion that she takes some comfort in. She thinks back to her youth and how, as she blossomed from a young girl to a woman, the romantic heroines from books and old films were her idols and she dreamt that one day her hero would come and save her. She laughs, bitterly, at the memory and now finds it ironic that _she_ was the one to save _him._ Now, after so long apart, and with only an empty, fake life to lead, she has lost sense of the romance of it all. The problem isn't that she believes she made a mistake in leaving to protect him because she knows it was the right thing to do. It isn't that she has never felt so alone in her life as she does now. It's that her heart still belongs to him and she knows she'll never be able to share her life with him.

Her throat constricts, reflexively, at the thought and she has to tell herself off for being so maudlin. She distracts herself, momentarily, by looking in the shop windows that she passes but immediately regrets it when she sees the displays of cards and gifts all adorned with red hearts and sentimental phrases. She wonders, not for the first time, why some people are so insistent on ramming the fact that they are in love down everyone's throats. She's in love, has been for years, and hasn't mentioned her feelings for Harry to another living soul. Nor does she imagine that she ever will. Her love for him is private, discreet, just as it always was. The people in her new life might _think_ they know that she has feelings for someone but, like the set of colleagues and friends she left behind, they'll never know the true extent of it. They'll never know that from the first day she looked into his warm, brown eyes she was captivated by him, or that she stole a photograph of him from his file and still carries it with her. They'll never know about the secret birthday gifts they exchanged, or how the hairs used to stand up on the back of her neck every time he leant close and read her computer screen over her shoulder. Her eyes close against the onslaught of memories and as an image of him flashes in her mind she has to stifle a sob.

When her eyes open again she steadfastly refuses to look anywhere other than straight ahead and sets a more determined pace. She is angry with herself for thinking about him despite the knowledge that there isn't a day that goes by where she doesn't think about him. She's not sure why today should really be any different to the other 364 days of the year that she spends pining for him, and for her former life, but somehow it is. She worries that it is because somewhere, in the deep recesses of her mind, she is still clinging on to the hope that one day he will come for her. That he will save her from her self-imposed exile and that she will finally allow him to tell her something wonderful that was never said. She smiles, ruefully, as she reaches the front door, and thinks that perhaps she isn't that far removed from the romantic daydreamer that she once was.

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Her flat is only marginally warmer than outside but, as she flicks on the lamp and removes her coat, she is grateful to be home. She automatically checks her answer machine as she passes it on the way to the kitchen and is unsurprised to find that she has no messages. What does take her by surprise is the disappointment that she feels upon seeing the digital zero on the display. She berates herself for being foolish enough to think that he would do something so reckless as to leave a massage on her answer phone and decides to drown her sorrows in a glass of wine. She's half way through pouring the second glass when her doorbell rings and she is so startled that she spills some of the wine on the counter top as her hand jitters. Her heart automatically begins to pound and her mouth is suddenly dry as she allows the possibility that it might be Harry creep in.

"Evelyn?" The voice belongs to her elderly neighbour and her hopes are instantly dashed. She eyes the bottle of wine and is wondering how much of a hangover she will have tomorrow if she drinks the whole bottle.

"Coming!" she replies finally snapping out of it and crosses to open the door.

Her kindly neighbour smiles at her, briefly. "You have a parcel," she says as she passes her a small, neatly wrapped parcel, "it wouldn't fit in the mail box so I took it in for you." Ruth is oblivious to the older woman, her eyes are still glued to the front of the parcel where her name and address are written in a familiar script.

"Something from an admirer, I expect," teases the pensioner and Ruth finally drags her eyes away from the parcel to look at her companion. She is about to reply when the other woman beats her to it, "I'll leave you to open it in private."

"Thank you," Ruth says, earnestly.

The door closes with a loud clunk and she leans her back against it as she looks down at the parcel still gripped in her now trembling hands. She traces her finger lightly over her name and then turns it over in her hands, suddenly desperate to know what has been sent. She peels the paper apart reverently, not wishing to damage it any more than she absolutely has to, and can see the back cover of a small book. Curiously she pulls it free from the paper altogether and is unable to help the sob that wracks her whole body as she reads the title. 'The Book of Happy Endings' is written across the top of the book in a black, almost childish, scrawl and she allows herself to hope, as she's scarcely dared to hope, that it means what she thinks it might. She opens the front of the book, carefully, and through her tears can just about make out the simple message that has been left for her. She's smiling and laughing and crying all at the same time and never has the word 'soon' been so important to her.

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**Thanks for reading.**

'**The Book of Happy Endings' isn't mine. I'm just borrowing it for this fic :-) **


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